


A Rescue of Queens

by Sanguinifex (Eros_Scribens)



Series: ZevWarden Week 2017 [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Anal Sex, Arl Howe is a serial killer, Crossdressing, Espionage, Joints aren't supposed to do that, M/M, Oral Sex, Rimming, Ruffles Kink, The Landsmeet, ZevWarden Week, Zevran is probably not cis tbh, very mild torture, zevwarden week 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 09:18:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11688651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eros_Scribens/pseuds/Sanguinifex
Summary: Anora is being held prisoner by Arl Howe, and Zevran has the sense not to let his friends barge in there without some recon first. There are also rumors that Arl Howe is the mysterious predator decimating the ranks of "working girls" in the bad part of town. The solution to both problems? Zevran in a dress.For ZevWarden Week 2017, Day 3: Fancy Dress.





	A Rescue of Queens

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to diverge a bit from the way the quest works in-game. Mostly, the game does not have Arl Howe as a serial killer, and I'm trying to avoid some of the combat and killing, because it seems IC. Notably, they don't kill a couple of people, because they want them to have real trials later. Also, Isabela is effectively a temporary party member, and you don't want to take 3 rogues and 1 mage on this quest, usually.

“No. Absolutely not. We are not going in without reconnaissance.” Arl Eamon and Erlina stared at Zevran, surprised that he would interrupt. Alim and Alistair also stared at Zevran, probably surprised that he had used three consecutive declarative sentences.

“But I know where the Queen is!” protested Erlina. “You just have to follow my directions!”

“Well, are you disguising yourself as a guard, too, and following us?”

“No…I’m too short and slight; I’d never pass.”

“My point stands. This Arl Howe is hiring human guards, is he not? What was it we saw in the Alienage—‘Elves who have swords will die upon them’? Hardly likely that we would be applying as private security, then. I am also too short and slight to pass as a human, even with my ears covered by a helmet. Alim’s presence might be plausible, as a mage, but me? No. For my reconnaissance, I must have some other disguise.”

“Who said you were doing the reconnaissance?” asked Arl Eamon.

“Have any of you ever infiltrated a hostile target’s mansion, alone, with the purpose of stealing information or killing your target and getting out alive? No? Well then, it would seem that I am the only man for the job, don’t you think?”

“And just how are you going to do it?” asked Alistair.

“There are rumors about Howe. Or rather, about a man with a pinched face strikingly similar to his who preys on those the authorities care little about. I will infiltrate the Arl of Denerim’s mansion disguised as an elven prostitute.”

Zevran paused for effect, gauging the others’ responses. Erlina looked impressed; the Arl looked shocked and appalled; Alistair blushed. Cute, that last, but if he was to be king he needed to better control his reactions.

“Well?” he asked the room. “It will work. I am _very_ charming, and I can handle myself should he decide to take any liberties I do not wish him to. Moreover, I can even do so without killing him, unless you wish me to kill him. Now, what are we waiting for? Get me a dress.”

 

Zevran was taller and broader-shouldered than any of Arl Eamon’s female elven servants. Fortunately, Sanga at the Pearl had heard the rumors about the predacious man who looked like Howe and dressed with the same expense as Howe, and moreover had significant experience equipping employees who did not strictly adhere to the usual gender categories. She took Zevran into a walk-in wardrobe while Alim and Leliana waited in the bar. (Oghren had wanted to come along, but everyone else had forbidden it.)

The duelist, Isabela, was there again, fighting more drunken idiots who thought having a metaphorical sword meant they were automatically proficient at the non-metaphorical sort. Why this was allowed in a brothel was beyond Alim or Leliana, but Sanga seemed okay with it. Perhaps it was a job, though whether as security or as a dominatrix was rather in doubt.

“Hello, sailors,” Isabela said, waving to them. “Up for another voyage? Though I see Zevran’s not with you.”

“Business, this time, I’m afraid,” Alim admitted, while Leliana looked at the ground. “We won’t have time before we have to head out again.”

“Zevran in a dress?” Isabela exclaimed, when Alim had explained. “I must admit I’m curious. Positively throbbing with anticipation. But good on you; two birds with one stone. I’ve heard about what’s going around; the girls on the street call him ‘the Rat-bite.’ ‘The Rat-bite got her,’ they say, like that. The guard doesn’t care when poor women go missing, especially when they’re elves or queens with a lowercase Q, or both—not when there’s a Blight and a low-key civil war, anyway. I haven’t been in Denerim long enough when there wasn’t to tell. And if the Rat-bite really is Howe, that could explain it, too.”

“If it is Howe, I’m surprised no one else noticed,” said Alim.

“He’s only been Arl of Denerim for a few months. Most people wouldn’t know him from an actual rat. Most people also expect an Arl to have more upscale taste in sex workers, too. I did. I mean, we all knew he must have money, if the witnesses got his clothes right, but you still don’t expect the fucking Arl of Denerim to be a serial killer.”

“Ah, Isabela! I did not see you on the way in. Everyone, how do I look?”

Alim thought he might pass out if his blood redistributed itself to his nether regions any faster. Distantly, he heard Isabela whistle. Zev had always been pretty, but now he was…extra pretty. That was the closest word Alim was capable of thinking of. The dress was real silk—a bit crumpled and faded in places and stained or moth-eaten in others and obviously third-hand, but more authentic-looking for all that. It had loose sleeves, gathered at the wrist, that would hide Zevran’s muscles and the training they indicated. The skirt draped into dozens of tiny pleats, but the bodice was unadorned and cut fairly high, lying flat across Zevran’s chest. The whole thing was richly purple-pink. His hair had been curled, and he was made up, tattoos hidden.

Zevran’s whole posture had changed, too. Normally he had an air of insolence or wariness, or even an almost catlike playfulness. Now he seemed regal, spine rigid, yet somehow all the more inviting for the seeming disdain. Like a spun-sugar cake ornament, if one did not know the reality: stiff and sharp, but able to be crushed or melted into sweetness.

Alim understood for the first time why drag queens were called queens.

Zevran laughed, almost giddily, seeing Alim’s reaction—smiling more genuinely happily than Alim thought he had ever seen him. “So you like me either way, I see. Maker, I missed this. It has been too long since I got to be pretty. The Crows usually only use the youngest _mieleros_ for this role, so I have not done it since I was twenty.”

“The Crows are missing out, then,” said Isabela.

“I was prettier when I was seventeen. A few less lines around the mouth, you know? Still, I should do.”

“Zevran, I say this as a connoisseur of Orlesian fashion,” said Leliana. “You are amazingly beautiful in a dress, even one that looks like it was made sometime during the occupation of Ferelden. And for the role you are playing, you need a dress like that.”

“Yes. That,” said Alim, who was still trying to get his mouth to work, while distracted by the worry that his robes were failing to hide his state.

“And you don’t look old. With makeup, you won’t even at forty. And sometime before then, I’m going to take you to Val Royeaux and find you a proper dressmaker. Oh, and a shoemaker, too.”

“That, too.”

“Now, you are responsible for the dress and the shoes,” Sanga was saying. “If anything happens, you’re paying for it. Fortunately, with those moth holes, I’d have sold it cheap at our annual rummage sale in a few weeks, anyway. We haven’t had anyone his size in a few years, truth be told.”

“Bill it to Arl Eamon of Redcliffe,” said Zevran airily, with a wave of his hand.

“Oh, he’s good,” said Leliana to herself.

“If he ever retires from his current line of work and needs a job, I’m offering him one,” replied Sanga.

 

The ‘rat-bitten’ stroll was on the outskirts of the alienage, in a human slum. Though, looking around, Alim was pretty sure at least a third of the humans were actually ‘halves.’ Just human enough to live outside the alienage; not human enough to have been able to learn a trade as children, and faces strange enough that most would know what they were. It was something about the world outside the Circle that seemed particularly cruel and senseless: Deny an arbitrary group of people the means to live well, then use the results of that deprivation to justify it in the first place.

Zevran slipped into the crowd of people of various apparent genders wearing dilapidated clothes that had once been fine. Now all he had to do was avoid notice until the ‘Rat-bite’ came along, then suddenly become conspicuous.

Several hours passed. Alim, Leliana, and Isabela took turns watching from the second floor of an abandoned building. Funny how people never looked up. They wondered if the Rat-bite would not show—he did not always, though tonight had seemed likely given his pattern. Then…

“That is definitely Howe,” said Leliana, confirming Alim’s suspicion. “You should have told us you were nearsighted; we wouldn’t have made you watch.”

“Okay, maybe I can’t see his eye color from fifty feet, but I can catch how he feels in the Fade, and in some ways that’s more accurate. It just gets muddy when there’s a lot of people who are all projecting their own fears onto one person.”

“Huh. Are you a spirit medium, too, or just a scryer?” asked Isabela.

“Spirit healer. I don’t have a particular gift for talking to spirits, just picking up Fade stuff. Someone in your family a mage?”

“I’m from Rivain. Lots of mages get to be out of the Circle and all, up there. Everyone knows a wise woman or two. You should go to Rivain, sometime, if you’re good with spirits.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Leli, what’s Howe doing?”

“He’s talking to Zevran. Zevran’s flirting. Touching him on the arm, doing that thing where you stand to make yourself look a little smaller, probably looking into his eyes. He is definitely good, I’ll give him that. He didn’t seduce you the same way, did he?”

“Maker, no. I just liked his ass.”

“They’re starting to walk away. We should follow. Inconspicuously.”

“I’m beginning to wish I’d picked up some civilian clothes,” said Alim.

“It’s the Long Stewpot,” said Isabela, referring to the stroll. “Your hair will stand out more than your robes. Just put your hood on, and come on before we lose them.”

Isabela and Leliana both had actual training in subterfuge. Alim did not, but he had been evading Templars for years. Howe occasionally looked around, but not particularly thoroughly. Part of that was undoubtedly Zevran’s fault, since he kept caressing Howe or appearing to trip over cobblestones. Alim suspected that Zevran was pretending to be drunk. Howe appeared to have no guards; however, he did have a pair of daggers on his belt, according to Isabela, in addition to his personal knife. Likely he was a proficient fighter, then—but Zevran had to be at least as well trained, both with dual weapons and unarmed fighting, and close to thirty years younger. Alim hoped, desperately, that the difference would be enough in Zevran’s favor, if it came to that.

As the capitals of countries go, Denerim is fairly small. Also, people like to live where they can get servants—or rather, when a city is built, the servants of the rich tend to settle on whatever unclaimed ground nearby that none of their employers are willing to build on yet. Collections of huts eventually become slums. The alienage and the Poor Quarter were actually fairly close to the Drakon Area and the Arl of Denerim’s Estate, less than a mile, though uphill. It was indeed to that estate that Howe led Zevran, thus confirming that he was indeed Howe. The three trailed them to the servants’ gate, then dared go no further.

Zevran had said to come after him if he were in the Estate for more than two hours. So they waited.

 

At first, Arl Howe led ‘Zinnia’ to his bedroom. This was all well and good. Even when he had locked the door to that bedroom, Zevran was not too worried. It was not hard to lift keys, after all, and any man might want to be sure he would not be disturbed during sex. Then, though, Howe unlocked another door in his room, and snapped at ‘Zinnia’ not to “sit on the bed, you filthy slattern!” Then he grabbed Zevran’s wrist and half led, half dragged him down a flight of steps behind the door. The bottom was unmistakably a dungeon.

One might think a survivor of the Crows would not be afraid of a dungeon. This is false. Zevran did not fear pain, but he did fear permanent damage. By the time Zevran had been an advanced enough fledgling for serious pain training, the Crows had actually had some vested interest in his survival. They had hurt him, but he had known that he would not be outright maimed or killed unless either he or they seriously fucked up. With targets, though, it was all unknown. Whether by accident or design, they could easily make him unable to walk or use his hands again, and it would not matter to them. Now that he had fled the Crows, there was no pension or sinecure waiting for him if that should happen. So Zevran was afraid. But he kept that fake-drunk smile on his face and joked about Messere being “an adventurous man” and did not show it. That much he could do.

Howe turned right, left, and then left again into a large room with a couple of racks. One of them was already occupied. Not a threat. A torturer stood next to it. A threat, but the man was at least fifty and did not look agile. If he could find a way out of whatever restraints these two were obviously going to put him in, he could escape. He prayed that there would be no paralysis runes. Nothing else he had ever faced was quite so bad as magic making it so that you could not breathe.

Fortunately, the restraints were rune-free. Perhaps Ferelden was not so rich a country that arls could afford runes, or perhaps on that one time long ago Zevran’s target had been unusually paranoid. That had been an uncomfortably similar mission to this one, only it had been supposed to look like a natural death…no, he was not going to think about that, or what the Crows had done to him for fucking up that (and to Rinna and Taliesen for saving him and finishing the mission, but badly). The torturer strapped Zevran into the rack, dress and all—not as tightly as he really should have; he was probably hoping Zevran would try to flail and damage his wrists and ankles. It would have held most people, but Zevran was able to dislocate his thumbs pretty much at will. Right now, it seemed like the rack was just being used to keep him immobile while other things were done to him.

Zevran looked up, as much as he could. Howe had his pants open and seemed to be stroking himself slowly. Zevran wondered if it was too much to hope that the man just enjoyed the aesthetic of bondage. Then he heard Howe say “Do it,” and the torturer jabbed him with a needle in the sole of his foot.

Zevran made a good show of screaming. In reality, he was almost overwhelmed with relief. The torture was not going to be very bad, at least to start out. The Rat-bite took victims every three or four weeks, according to the rumors. It seemed likely that Howe gradually escalated the torture of each victim until he killed them, but for the timeframe of a few hours, it probably would not be worse than a number of things he had endured completely recreationally. Worst case, he might get lockjaw, but Alim or Wynne could probably cure that. He just had to lie here and get stabbed in the foot with a pin and make a show of being in pain. It looked like Howe got off to that.

Howe took absolutely forever to get himself off. Apparently he preferred to watch, which was something of a relief. Since the torture did not escalate much, Zevran assumed he was edging. The torturer kept poking him at random in most of his limbs, but nowhere that would cause permanent damage. It was actually almost boring. Some of the sticks barely hurt; the torturer was barely more than an amateur, not a real interrogator. Even Zevran knew more of how to stick pins in places that really hurt for relatively little damage. And they hadn’t even tried genital torture yet.

It seemed like hours, but at last Howe came with a sharp grunt. He did up his pants and left. Immediately the torturer went to work on the other unfortunate prisoner. So Howe had to have an interest in his…objects of desire apart from simply the act of torture, then. Good to know. Well, probably Howe would be dead before the night was out, if he had any say in it, but Zevran filed the fact away anyway, out of habit.

Now he had to get out. Zevran had hidden lockpicks in his hair, but he had to get his hands free first. This part always sucked. Grimacing, Zevran dislocated his thumbs, feeling the joints pop, and carefully slid his hands out of the manacles, biting his lip to make no sound. Still lying flat on the rack, he popped his thumbs back into place. His hands would be sore for days, but at least he was out. And they had not even locked the ankle cuffs, just latched them! Idiots. Lazy noble idiots, who preyed on people too weak to fight back. Zevran had had such targets before; for all their flaws, the Crows did take charity missions sometimes, when powerful men stepped too far. It had the side benefit of getting in the authorities’ good graces, when they knew who had done what but could not formally act. Honestly, it was not even the first time that Zevran had dressed up as a street queen to seduce a target.

(He wondered, sometimes, if his use of the disguise made people more hostile to street queens, but then again, he was pretty sure that he would have been a real one if the Crows had not scooped him up. Or, on the other hand, it might make people think twice about taking their lives for granted. At the end of the day, it was effective for his primary goals, and he looked good in a dress.)

He had no weapons save his table knife—they had not even searched him!—or whatever was at hand, but he did not need those. He had completed missions with far less. Now, he crept up on the preoccupied torturer and pounced. He considered breaking the man’s neck, but realized at the last second that Alim and Arl Eamon would probably want the man to testify. He himself was unwilling to leave the man alive, since he had undoubtedly been complicit in the murders of at least half a dozen innocents, but still he just rendered the man unconscious via pressure on the carotid arteries, then locked him into one of his own racks. (Really locked, this time, both hands and feet. Zevran stole the keys for good measure.)

He then turned to the racked prisoner. Fortunately, the man had had the sense to keep quiet. Zevran released him.

“I cannot get you out of here, right now, but I will come back for you,” he promised—the man could hardly walk, no surprise there, and Zevran was going to have enough trouble getting himself out. “Lock yourself into a cell, quickly, and they will think you are just another prisoner, or that these people are done torturing you. I will be back with friends, in a few hours.”

“What about the jailer?” asked the man—a noble accent, interesting.

“If you are very lucky, the others will mistake him for you, no?”

“I…guess.”

There were cells not far down the hall, with more people in some of them. They showed clear signs of torture and starvation. Maker, they would have to clear out this whole place, and as soon as possible. No waiting for backup or warrants; these people’s lives came first. Zevran locked the man he had rescued into an empty cell, and gave him the key off the ring he had stolen from the torturer.

“I doubt that is the only key, unfortunately, so others than you may be able to take you out of here, but at least you will be able to get yourself out, no? I suggest you hide that in your person, as opposed to merely on it.”

“Who the Void are you?” asked the man. It was, Zevran supposed, a fair question. People were rarely rescued from dungeons by…anyone, really, but especially not by apparent streetwalkers with assassin skills.

“A friend,” he answered, that being the simplest truth. “And I will bring more friends. That is a promise.”

“Are you going to get the rest of us out, or just this noble blighter here?” asked an elf in the cell across the hall.

“All of you. Unless you have done something particularly bad that you actually should be locked up for, and then we will try to have you transferred to a more legitimate prison that will actually feed you.” He turned to the noble prisoner. “I was not hired by your family, and in fact I have no idea who you are. If I did know, I might be able to explain all of this to my real…employer, who thought this would be a simple reconnaissance mission?”

“Oswyn, son of Bann Sighard. One of my friends was at Ostagar, and then he told me that—”

“What Loghain did. I suspect that is why you are here. Now enough. I must leave, so that I can come back. That is how it works, no? You all sit tight here, and do not tell the guards. Our secret.” Curtseying deeply—he was still wearing the dress—Zevran made his exit.

After that, it was a matter of sneaking through the dungeon, avoiding the guards. Zevran was beginning to wish he had not worn pink. There had been a lovely grey dress that had fit him, but he had turned it down because it had showed too much of his arms. Howe would not pick someone who looked too strong, he had reasoned. Zevran got into Howe’s bedroom—Howe was not there, he noted—and began exploring. Where was the Queen? She had not been in the dungeon.

Shortly after, he found a door with a magic seal. It felt like magic, anyway—kind of tingly. He knocked, and a woman answered, claiming to be the Queen and to be locked in. Whether or not it was actually Anora—and it seemed probable—she needed to be rescued. Zevran promised her that she would be, and decided to get out of there. Servants’ entrance. Where was the servants’ entrance? Howe had brought him in the front, but there was no way an unaccompanied whore would be allowed to leave that way. He snuck through the halls and eventually found the kitchen, and the way out.

 

Zevran returned just as the others were on the point of going in to get him.

“How’d it go?” asked Alim.

“I am fine. A lot of other people are not. We were right about Howe; he is indeed the Rat-bite. He is also holding and torturing political opponents, and a large number of other people, and he seems to be starving them. We need to go in there now. As we are.”

“So you do have morals,” remarked Leliana.

“Who said I did not?” shot back Zevran, turning to look at her.

“What did they do to you?” asked Alim, already gathering his magic.

Zevran laughed, and described his very minor injuries. “And can you believe it? All that, and he does not even try to stick it in me. He just stood there watching his butcher _stick my feet with pins_ , of all things they could have done to me, just stood there and—” Zevran made some appropriately suggestive hand motions. “I pretended to cry, and he just ate it up and tugged his sausage. Of course, he probably escalates things eventually. Since he keeps taking new girls, I suspect the other ones end up dead. And then he left, once he finished, and I slipped the cuffs and put the torturer in them.”

“Popped your thumbs?” asked Isabela.

“Yes,” said Zevran.

“You’re going to destroy your hands like that!” said Alim, healing him there as well—he had already healed his feet. Zevran felt the soreness in his hands ease.

“I try not to do that very often,” he reassured Alim. “But I am very bendy. I have to do hand exercises to make sure that sort of thing does not happen by accident. Look.” Zevran grabbed the fingers of his left hand and bent them back until they were at right angles with the back of his hand, popping them out of their joints a bit. It hurt less than thumbs did—a bit less muscle around there, probably.

“I just healed that,” groaned Alim. He healed him again, anyway.

Leliana just looked vaguely alarmed and disgusted.

“Then I rescued the other prisoner, and put him in the comparative safety of a jail cell. He is a noble, by the way. If we rescue him all the way, that could be a vote for us in the Landsmeet, no?”

“Definitely,” said Leliana.

“And the Queen is at the end of the hall from Howe’s bedroom—beginning of the hall from the front door side, I guess. But we cannot go in that way, no? We will have to take the servants’ entrance and go through most of the house. We rogues must be sneaky. Alim will probably be mistaken for one of the mages in Howe’s employ, and besides, he is surprisingly sneaky as well.”

“Let’s go, then, I guess,” said Alim, getting up and picking up his staff.

The servants had some idea of Howe’s extracurricular activities, and were willing to look the other way as Zevran returned with three conspicuously armed people. One maid was even kind enough to show them a servants’ passage that Zevran had not previously found. Her brother had died in the alienage riots, she whispered, and Howe kept leering at her, but there were few other jobs around, with the troubles and all. And so they popped up in a little closet across from Howe’s room.

Alim tried to dispel the seal on Anora’s door, but it did not work. Someone was actively maintaining it, and probably with a fixed glyph, for this level of strength, complexity, and durability. Alim was willing to bet that the glyph was somewhere in the dungeons. So they went back down the hall to Howe’s bedroom.

In the dungeon again—thank you, stolen ring of keys—the guards were, unfortunately, on high alert. It seemed that they had found the torturer Zevran had incapacitated. After they fought their way through them, they found that rack empty—but at least Oswyn had not been put back on it. Probably, they considered torturing him further to be the least of their problems. Meanwhile, it turned out that one of the prisoners was another Grey Warden, and a senior Warden at that. He was in too poor condition to fight with them, unfortunately, but well enough to escape on his own, now that he was out. They told him of the servants’ passage, and he made his way out.

They also found the dungeon records. There was a list of all the current prisoners, and their crimes and cell locations. Zevran found the entry for the elf he had talked to earlier.

“He killed the son of the previous Arl of Denerim?” Zevran asked, eyebrows nearly to his hairline.

“Someone did, anyway,” said Isabela. “Vaughn Kendells tried to steal an elven woman from the alienage on her wedding day. There were riots. Rumor has it one of her relatives snuck in and killed him. Or at least, Vaughn hasn’t been seen since. Good riddance to bad rubbish, by all accounts.”

“I say we let him go,” said Zevran. “See, this is why you need assassins. Otherwise the nobles think they can do things like this.”

“And common people can afford the Crows?” asked Leliana.

“If a noble has gotten that destructive, we kill them without being hired. It is in the spirit of our founders, we say. Of course, the real reason is likely that all the rest of the nobles dislike riots, and atrocities, especially graphic and unpunished ones, tend to cause riots. A case in point here, no?” And besides, half the Crows were elves, and a good many more were halves, even some in the leadership. Most had backgrounds similar to Zevran’s own. No matter how much they believed in their own elitism, the fact was that they had been chosen for that exalted path, and if they had not been, they would be the same as the other unfledged masses of poor that the more arrogant nobles preyed on. Not that the Crows were not themselves cruel, but senseless violence against uninvolved parties was frowned upon.

“Hold up,” said Leliana, scanning down the page. “This says Vaughn Kendells isn’t dead?”

“Hmm? You are right. He is being held here; a different hall of cells. All the more reason to let the elf go. So Howe is not even a legitimate Arl, then, at least not here. Not that I would want Vaughn to be arl, so I think we should arrange an ‘accident’ for him while we are here, but it may be easier to prosecute Howe if he is not even in charge of this city, no?”

“Yes. He is going to be in a lot of legal trouble just for that,” said Alim. “I think we should keep Kendells alive for the Landsmeet, though, and arrange for him to be tried for rape, after. Or for public endangerment, or inciting riots, or something.”

“Are you sure I can’t kill him now?”

“We need to get Howe and Loghain.”

“All right,” said Zevran, dubiously.

They made their way through the rest of the dungeon, releasing people and trying to avoid having to kill guards. According to the records they had found, nearly all the captives were political prisoners or petty criminals who had committed offenses against the Arl’s own household. A number of entries, mostly women’s names, were listed as current prisoners and accused of “pickpocketing” but were nowhere to be seen in the cells. They agreed that these were probably Howe’s victims.

And then there was a large room with Arl Howe, two mages in robes, two guards, and, as Alim had suspected, a glyph drawn on the wall. Manually drawn, instead of magically inscribed to prime an area with a triggerable spell, so dispelling it would (and had) done nothing beyond making it flicker for a second. There were a few seconds of surprise, for both parties.

“Well, well. The Grey Warden. I must say I’m surprised Eamon would condone you invading my castle and murdering my men. Is he losing faith in the persuasive powers of his Landsmeet?”

“It’s not even a real castle,” said Alim. “It doesn’t have crenellations.”

“Oh, I think the nobles will find the evidence of what you’ve done here quite persuasive,” said Leliana.

“We came for the queen—well, really, I came to plan how to rescue the queen—but I could not see all of this and just leave these poor souls to their fates, could I now?” said Zevran.

Howe finally noticed him. “You hussy! What are you doing here? How did you get out?”

“Easily, my dear. You nobles are so confident in your money that you do not even lock people up securely. _If_ you survive this, maybe you will not take working girls for defenseless playthings anymore, no?”

“Hi there, Rat-bite,” said Isabela, waving.

“You rabble will regret that accusation,” said Howe, paling. “And after certain upstarts are brought to heel, Loghain will end the Blight you go on about. Something your pathetic order of second sons can’t seem to get done. Ferelden needs a king who has known command. With the proper advisor at his side, of course.”

“Yes. Too bad you killed the last one. Oh, and that you’re a parasite who gets off on killing women.”

“Please. Cailan was a symbol, the coddled idea of the royal bloodline. He wasn’t a real leader. You should have left when you had the chance, Warden. Snuck off to the Anderfels to hide with the rest of your kind. This Landsmeet is a farce. Loghain will triumph, and you will die.” Howe signaled to his lackeys, and everyone attacked.

Alim reached around through the Fade and mentally gripped the fade-half of the nearest mage, wrenching it brutally. The man went down. For someone as attuned to the Fade as a mage was, the shock of such a thing was often fatal. (Even for a lot of mundane people, it could be quite unpleasant.) Alim had no time to check if the man was still breathing; there were other people still trying to kill him. He could not cast Mana Clash again so fast—it had taken most of his mana reserve—but he managed to cast a minor dispel and started aiming hexes at the other mage, while shielding himself and everyone else. And that was about all he could do, besides casting staff bolts. He was reaching for the last bits of his mana, and pretty soon it was going to be a struggle to stay upright. He had no lyrium potions, because he hated using the stuff. He considered blood magic, but these were people. Alim still was not sure if he could give them the Blight by bleeding on them.

“Try to take Howe alive,” he yelled, digging at the Fade to give him more power. The Veil was surprisingly robust here, for all that must have happened in this house, and for all the years Denerim had been a city.

Isabela stabbed one of the guards, and Alim had his answer. The guard was already bleeding anyway, and was fighting against them; he could use that man’s blood. Rushing over and dipping his fingers in it, he pulled its power into him.

Leliana was hiding behind a pillar and shooting at the second mage. (Alim had not recognized either of them; they must be apostates or from Jainen.) At that moment, they decided to turn into a spider. Alim was too distracted to tell if it was actual shapeshifting or just very good illusion magic, or even a summon that the mage had ducked behind. Unwilling to use Mana Clash again, he merely froze the spider-mage and followed it with a stonefist. Bits of frozen mage-spider broke off. Real shapeshifting, it seemed. Maybe they _were_ an apostate.

Zevran incapacitated the second guard, and began helping Isabela fight the Arl. Since he was unarmored, he let Isabela distract the man and snuck in a blow when he could from behind. Of course he had hidden mail, dammit. With clothing over it, even The Rose’s Thorn could not easily get through it. Suddenly, their blades began to glow, and he realized that Alim was helping them. A couple seconds later, the Arl began glowing with a series of hexes. They were in too close proximity for Alim to use other spells, he realized.

Finally, Isabela got in a gut stab, and Howe finally dropped.

“Maker spit on you,” wheezed Howe, clutching his intestines. “I deserved…more….” He flopped back, unconscious.

“Yes, you do deserve more,” muttered Alim. “Like hanging.” He was already healing the comatose Arl. “There,” he said a few minutes later. “He won’t die, but if he does more than walk slowly for the next few months, he’ll probably bleed out on the inside. I must say I was tempted to give him a few nasty adhesions, but that goes against my professional code as a healer, and Wynne would yell at me.”

“She already yells at you,” pointed out Zevran.

“She’s just mad about how I prefer herbalism to pure magic. Not that she’s above using potions, far from it, but she has this rivalry with the herbalism enchanter. I don’t want to give her an actual reason to be mad at me.”

“Could you have made it so his dick doesn’t work?” asked Isabela. “You know, in case he weasels out of hanging somehow.”

“We have witnesses to what he did. He’s not going to escape hanging unless the Blight takes us. I mean, I could have, but it would be harder to hide that I did it.”

“Or Zev could just cut his junk off.”

“He’d bleed to death.”

“I’m not cutting anyone’s junk off, yes?”

“Then it’s settled. Lock him up, junk intact, leave a note saying that if he exerts himself he’ll die, and rescue the queen.”

“Right,” said Zevran. Alim broke the glyph sealing the queen’s room, leaving as much of it intact as possible for evidence.

In the next room, there were more cells. They left Vaughn in his cell, after Isabela tricked a strongbox key out of him, and the severely ill Templar who refused to leave with them. Alim regretted not carrying lyrium, for the second time that day. From what he could tell, the man was a typical third son who had gone to the Chantry for lack of much else to do, and besides, lyrium withdrawal was not something he would wish on anyone.

They put Howe in another cell, and left the dungeon behind.

Anora had already discovered that her room was unlocked, but had been afraid to leave it, alone. They agreed that the best option for her safety would be to take her back to Arl Eamon’s—secretly, if they could.

This was not to be.

“Warden! In the name of the regent, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Rendon Howe and his men-at-arms. Surrender, and you may be shown mercy.”

“It was self-defense!” said Zevran.

Alim had seen enough of the sort of mercy the regent condoned. “Isabela? Leli? There’s too many for us to take. Do you have any smoke bombs?”

“Yes, a few,” said Leliana.

“Throw them. I’ll take care of the rest. We’re going to run.”

And as pottery broke and smoke rose from the mixing chemicals, they all ran.

“Get them!” yelled Ser Karen? Cowden?—Alim could not remember, but he had managed to summon a sandstorm (yes, a sandstorm; a blizzard might have chilled the smoke bombs too much, so he combined the blizzard and earthquake spells, sort of) and cast Haste on his own people, and the guards had no idea where they were. He could tell where he was going just fine, of course.

They made it back down the hall and into the servants’ passage, and then to the kitchen and out. They slowed to a walk, then, because running was suspicious, and finally reached the safety of Arl Eamon’s estate. They explained why the mission had…accelerated. Zevran was still wearing the dress.

“Maker,” groaned Alim, back in their room. “That should not have worked.”

“The important thing is that it did work, no? And I did not even get any blood on the dress.”

“You look really good in it. It’s a shame we have to give it back to Sanga.”

“You don’t mind me wearing dresses?” asked Zevran, hopefully.

“I wear robes, Zev. I hardly have room to criticize anyone’s clothing choices. Besides, it looks good on you. If you like wearing dresses, wear dresses. My opinion shouldn’t be a factor in it—but I’ll have you know, I approve. Wholeheartedly. Whole other organs, too.”

Zevran’s relief was almost palpable. “Well, we have a few more hours before we have to return the dress. We should have some fun with that, no?”

“Oh, definitely. If you’re okay, after earlier?”

“Howe did not even touch me. You healed my sore feet. And I suggested this, did I not?”

Zevran straddled Alim where he sat on the edge of his bed, spreading the full skirt over both of them. Alim grasped Zevran by the waist as they ground against each other, feeling the novel texture of the fabric beneath his hands. His hands traveled down to the front of the dress to rub Zevran through it, as Zevran bent down to lick his ear and the curve of his throat.

“Fuck. You’re not wearing smalls under that, are you?”

“No, I am not. It would not be realistic to the disguise, you see.”

“That’s…entirely logical. Wait. Did you leave your smalls at the Pearl, with the rest of your armor?”

“Yes. Why?”

“It’s funny, that’s all.”

“Leaving my smalls at a brothel and not even having ‘used’ the brothel, hmm?”

“Yeah.”

“I am still getting laid, though, you must agree.”

“And I still have my own pants as well as smalls on, and that’s something we need to fix, for this position.”

Zevran rolled off Alim and pulled his robes up and his leggings down. He was going for doing it sexily, but Alim was much too eager to help, kicking off his shoes and pulling his robes over his head without bothering to unbutton them all the way. Soon he was in just his shirt—it was always cold in the Estate, despite the fireplaces.

“Can you lie on the bed and pull your skirt up, Zev? I want to see you, but while you’re wearing that. If that’s okay.”

Zevran did so, smiling. So tentative, and this was barely even a kink. At times like this he was reminded that his Warden was younger than he was, and needed that much more care and consideration than he himself would. It was a carefulness he was always willing to give, and never to mock the need for. It was a carefulness he sometimes wished he could need for himself. So he lay on the bed as asked, spreading his skirt out under and over him like a fan, and bent his knees up to his head.

Alim nearly drooled at the sight. The pink of the dress contrasted with Zevran’s dark skin, yet it also drew out the rose tones deep within it, especially in the thinner skin at his entrance and the flushed head of his hard cock. He wanted nothing more than to lick him forever. And those pleats and ruffles—there was something indescribably appealing about Zevran in frills. Zevran should wear frills more often, he decided.

For now, he followed his desires and began licking all the parts of Zevran he so wanted to lick. It was as if Zevran’s body was made to be adored, to be kissed and adorned like a missal of the Chant, draped in gowns the way the decorated tome was displayed on an altar cloth. How could one person’s cock and ass possibly be so perfect? He licked and kissed his way down to Zevran’s ass, then stayed there and lavished his attention on the tight ring there, flicking his tongue insistently until even his magic could not undo its weariness, until Zevran was panting with need and writhing beneath his adoration.

He finished with one last, long lick, all the way up from hole to sac to cock, lapping up the bead of moisture that had appeared there. Zevran whined at him, wanting him to do something.

“Just a second,” said Alim, casting grease and stroking it over his hardness. There was a tiny wet spot on the linens where his cock had been while he was eating Zev out, he noticed. Shuffling forward on his knees, he lined himself up with Zevran’s entrance and eased his length inside.

Zevran’s hole was quite relaxed from the extended foreplay, but he was still so tight and hot inside. Alim let out a long groan as that sensation enveloped him completely, almost unwilling to pull out of it at all, even just to thrust back in again. But soon the need for more became overpowering, and he drew back and thrust in again, slamming his hips forward.

“Ah. Fuck. Yes. Keep doing that!” gasped Zevran, grasping the sheets and continuing to make little noises of pleasure that mingled with Alim’s grunts and hissing breaths. “Go as hard as you can. I’m—Ah!—not going to break.” Alim had teased him for nearly a quarter of an hour, and while his mouth was fantastic, he wanted to be fucked. He wanted to be filled up so full and so deep that he would feel it for hours, if not days afterwards. He needed all the sensation he was capable of bearing—and that was a lot—and it was almost, almost enough.

Alim felt the heat building within his loins, and knew he would be undone in a few more thrusts. “Zevran, I’m going to—do you think you could ride me, like earlier?”

That would work. Alim would probably last a little longer, if he had to thrust up. He nodded, and carefully he and Alim rolled over, until once again Zevran straddled Alim’s lap. He rocked up and down, and oh fuck yes, that angle hit his prostate so hard that it hurt, and that was very good. Hanging onto Alim’s shoulder with one hand and frantically stroking himself with the other, he rocked up and down on Alim’s cock, panting from the exertion, guided by Alim’s hand clutching his ass.

It was finally enough. He ground down on Alim’s cock and stayed there, with it pressed into his prostate so hard he saw white, as he stretched his whole body and came into his hand, careful even at this moment not to get anything on the borrowed dress. He felt Alim begin to shoot out inside him, brought over the edge by the sudden squeezing, crying out with a noise of pleasure and surprise. He wiped his messy hand on Alim’s shirt—while still half dazed from his orgasm—and rocked a little on Alim’s still-hard cock, savoring the aftershocks.

It was a couple minutes before he came down all the way, and before Alim began to soften inside him. Pulling his skirts up, making sure not to stain them, he slipped off Alim’s cock, leaking a trail of cum from his ass to its tip. He lay back on the bed, every limb loose and thrumming with satisfaction.

“So you really do like me in a dress,” he said, when he felt sure he could trust his lips to work again. He had thought so, before, but he had not been sure it was not just shock, at the Pearl.

“Maker, yes. We should get you some of your own. Leli probably knows what the fashions are.”

A weight Zevran did not know he bore seemed to lift from him. It was such a small thing; it should not mean this much, that Alim thought he was pretty in a dress, to be desired as that, but it did. Maker, what had he done or not done to deserve this man? He wondered if, perhaps, this was what love really was. And then he fell asleep, as one does.

**Author's Note:**

> Zevran probably has some form of hypermobility--in fact, that would likely be the reason the Crows chose him. It's a useful trait for an assassin, and fairly easy to observe in a small child. So, yeah, he can do that with his hands, it's just...not really a great idea. That's how you destroy your hands. Better than being stuck in a rack, though.
> 
> And yeah, Zevran is really not cis, in my worldstate. The terminology in Thedas is a bit different than ours, though. I have tried to reflect that while still being respectful. And Zevran just thinks it's a Crow thing, the poor guy. Still, Alim literally does not give a fuck and likes Zevran as a person, because he himself is a pretty good person.


End file.
